Collection
Library
Updated 1d
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Collection
Updated 1d
To read
Cloud Rats and Software Roaches (Idle Words)
We are entering an epoch where it may become easy for small pieces of self-replicating code to permanently infest Internet-connected devices in a way that is hard to undo. Such a world would be annoying to live in and we should take steps to forestall it.
Attention and the Relevance Problem
ABSTRACT The relevance problem is the problem of how cognitive systems can be sensitive to what is relevant despite relevance being holistic, open‐ended, and context‐sensitive. The problem has typically been applied to higher‐order cognitive processes. In this paper, I argue that there is a hitherto unrecognized relevance problem for perceptual attention. This problem becomes apparent when considering the functions of attention: attention must not only support ongoing task performance but also remain sensitive to opportunities for task switching, latent learning, and context checking. Existing treatments of the relevance problem have largely focused on its task‐relative form: given a task, what is relevant? I argue that attention faces a more general problem that includes sensitivity to factors relevant to other interests and to cues indicating that another activity may be worth pursuing. For such features of the environment to stand out as salient, salience cannot be determined solely by bottom‐up factors and a limited set of occurrent top‐down factors, such as current goals and intentions. Rather, it must reflect the wider (if not the entire) range of an agent's latent interests in a context‐sensitive way. This motivational unencapsulation of attention poses a challenge for both contemporary accounts of attention and suggests that passive attention is much more intelligent than commonly thought.
'Ask for what you want' is a key skill for the 21st century
Takes practice, and a bit of audacity.
E. coli chemotaxis: the baffling intelligence of a single cell
I want to tell the story of a beautiful phenomenon in biology. In some sense it’s the prototype of much of the activity of life. The phenomenon is the way in which an individual cell of E. coli forages for nutrients. This process, known as “chemotaxis”—the “chemo-” for chemical and the “taxis” from the Greek τάξις, for tactics—is intelligence in one of its most elemental forms. An individual E. coli has no brain, obviously, and is even many orders of magnitude simpler than a human cell, and yet already it possesses something like a sense of smell, drive, even a memory. Chemotaxis recasts E. coli not as some aimless gut-pest but rather as an exquisitely sophisticated physical computer.
School for Poetic Computation
The School for Poetic Computation is an experimental school in New York City supporting interdisciplinary study in art, code, hardware and critical theory. It's a place for learning and unlearning.
Can AI slop help us save the internet?
Disrupting the status quo and opening space for new visions
Building pro-worker AI | Brookings
Daron Acemoglu, David Autor, and Simon Johnson ask: What is pro-worker AI, and how can we build it?
Gradients of intimacy and creating shelter: An interview with Erin Kissane
How might we use nature as an inspiration for creating online communities?
Informatics of the Oppressed
An inquiry into the rich history of radical experiments to reorganize information.
The Cult of the Imperfect by Umberto Eco
October 28, 2019 – Umberto Eco on the merits of imperfect works of art, including ‘The Count of Monte Cristo,’ ‘Hamlet,’ and ‘Casablanca.’
Three Questions on Questions: On Asking, Knowing and Noticing
This was Kristen DiCerbo, Khan Academy’s Chief Learning Officer, in a recent Chalkbeat article. She was offering her explanation for why Khanmigo hadn’t lived up to its promise. I was reminded of a…
What China’s Vibe-Coding Capital Can Tell Us About the A.I. Boom
Liangzhu, a small town near the tech hub Hangzhou, has become a haven for tech workers burnt out by the grind of China’s booming tech industry.
What’s your apocalypse skill? Finding a future-proof hobby can bring fulfilment today
Take inspiration from Doomsday preppers with the idea of learning practical skills.
Data Feminism for AI
Attacks on women and trans people are not happening in a vacuum. Communications scholars W. Lance Bennett and Marianne Kneuer recently argued that we are witnessing the intensification of "illiberal public spheres" around the world (Bennett and Kneuer, 2023). These are characterized by a set of anti-democratic communications tactics that include the denigration and exclusion of minoritized people, targeted attacks on the press and political institutions, and transgression of norms of civil discourse. Such tactics are enabled and amplified by the social media platforms owned by Big Tech, whose business model elevates attention above all other metrics, such that they profit richly off extremism, threats, spectacle, and lies. The success of this corporate partnership with right-wing extremism is evident in the proliferation of book bans (Magnusson, 2024), the demonization of DEI and critical race theory (Crenshaw, 2022), and mob tactics to doxx, intimidate, misrepresent, and otherwise silence people that study misinformation, speak out against racial and gender violence, or rule against insurrectionists (Edmonds, 2024). At the same time, we have seen the continued work of feminists, including Latin American, Indigenous, and abolitionist feminists in the US and globally, doing the work of imagining alternate worlds (Cullors, 2021; Davis, 2022; Ricaurte, 2019; Simpson, 2017). This paper represents our own first attempt to imagine a more equitable, sustainable, feminist world for AI research.
Leveling Up: Career Advancement for Software Developers | Peter Lyons
Staff Engineer, Back End
Disappointed Optimists
Every time I give a talk on design, someone finds me afterward. They wait out the handshakes and the business cards, and then they ask a version of the same question. How do I make THEM do things the
Bodies upon the gears
Alternative approaches to The Man, considered by Nathan Schneider
Metamodern Individualism Anonymous
Diunital Cognition, Emotional Intelligence and Archaeological Therapy
